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Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling

I am so so excited to be starting a mini series today! Let's be honest - how many of you got excited just when you saw the title of the this post?

So, first, a little background...

When I met my dear, sweet husband, there were a few holes in his pop culture knowledge. For one, he had never seen the show LOST. Tragic. We starting watching through it together soon after we started dating and finished it up right after we got engaged. I told him I wouldn't marry him until he'd seen it all. We've also watched through all of The West Wing together. Before we met he only read for pleasure very occasionally. He's come a long way in that area for sure. No one can say my cultural education for him isn't also actually educational.

One particular glaring gap that needed immediate attention was his Harry Potter virginity. He not only had never read the books (no surprise there), he had never seen the movies. When I realized this, my attempts to turn him into an avid reader were still in their infancy. I had no hope of convincing him to read the books; I had to settle for the movies at that point.

Being the wonderful sport that my husband is, he consented and we watched all eight movies within a few weeks. Since then, we've watched 4-8 again. He's not a huge fan of the earlier ones just because they still have a pretty "kid movie" feel to them.

Ok, ok. I swear this introduction is about over. The rest of the story basically boils down to this: over the holiday season, I convinced him that we should listen to the audio books together. You all know that we're big fans of audio books for when we are traveling. I have been feeling the itch to read through the classic series again for a few months now (it's been over six years for me!) and really wanted to enjoy the experience with Kevin.

We had an absolute blast listening to the first book. For anyone who hasn't listened to J.K. Rowling's masterpieces in this medium, you must listen to the versions recorded by Jim Dale. He does a phenomenal job with the stories, particularly the different character voices. His Hagrid voice sounds nearly identical to the movie actor's.

As anyone who has both read the books and seen the movies knows, the movies simply cannot cover all the detail. Kevin kept saying over and over how much more detail there was in the book. Of course, we both continually raved about what a fantastic author Rowling is. I think she grows with Harry over the course of the series but even that first book is excellent. Her descriptions of people and places are especially vivid.

All that to say, I am guessing that most of you have read the Harry Potter series. As Kevin and I go through the series over the course of the year (I'm guessing that's about how long it will take us - we're slow), I want to get you involved. Since we're all familiar with Harry Potter, I want to make these posts a community effort.

I'd love to get a conversation going about our favorite parts of the books, our favorite characters, symbolism in the novels, funny memes, interesting facts, etc. Anything and everything Harry Potter. Let's make 2014 the Harry Potter year. What do you think? I want your input about different posts, events, etc. we can do to celebrate the series over the course of this year. I'm game for anything!

We'll start off small today - at least as far as official activities go. Over in the right hand column is a poll with all seven Harry Potter books (under the What's Popular Lately section). Vote to tell us which one is your favorite. Tell us why in the comments on this post. The poll will be up until the next Harry Potter post.